Preamble to the constitution for the USA 7/30/16

Below is the original preamble with emphasis for discussion. Notice the subject, people in their states (then thirteen), includes the article "the" which makes it totalitarian--everybody. It's followed by the condition "in order to," which might mean "because we want." Then come seven goals and the action: Do ordain and establish. Finally, the object: a constitution for the USA. "Posterity" is children, grandchildren and beyond; think "my posterity."

The sentence that defines a civic people (ACP):

              1.       The preamble to the constitution for the USA

              2.       The sentence ACP could continually update to avoid obsolete principles yet
               resist expanding so as to retain simplicity--manageability for 320 million people in 2016.

“We the People of the [13] United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

Writer’s personal paraphrase of the preamble

            1.       ACP collaborates with the inhabitants who routinely use nine civic goals (two tacit goals in addition to the seven) to establish civic morality, supervise their state, and limit the federal government for the USA.

            2.       A willing citizen might maintain his/her paraphrase he/she trusts and commits to. People who do not care about justice do not receive justice. Also, people who do not care how they are ruled will be ruled by other people.

The preamble is a neglected gift to humankind

• Perhaps fortuitous—unintended even by the signers (70% of delegates to Philadelphia, 65% of the people's representatives, since one of thirteen states did not send delagates)
1. Some dissenters wanted the States to govern
2. Many dissenters wanted governance under theism
3. Many state constitutions claimed reliance on English common law (Blackstone)
• Past generations missed their generation’s privileges for reform and, so far, we are missing, too:  
1. Using the preamble to establish ACP
2. Candid, intended iterative-collaboration by ACP
3. Motivate officials to respond to ACP rather than opinion-based law and theism
4. Set the example that would motivate the rest of We the People of the United States to join ACP
• The literal preamble is of by and for ACP, not to govern, but to collaborate for civic morality; there will always be dissidents to justice and criminals and evil.
• The preamble is a civic sentence.
1. Mutual, domestic accommodation
2. Claims real-no-harm (RNH) civic morality
3. RNH religions flourish in privacy. 
1. However, god-wars over civic morality become obsolete.
2. Believers and non-believers flourish in the overarching civic culture
4. The long standing Chapter XI Machiavellianism is broken--paraphrasing: priest-politician partnerships pick the people's pockets and believers support the priests as politicians come and go.
• Our generation can use the perhaps nine* goals to establish ACP

Using the Preamble to the constitution for the USA

•       A civic person accepts the civic power and RNH responsibility of the literal preamble

•       Candidly negotiates civic morality using physics, which is energy, mass and space-time

•       Benefits from physics—thereby ethics emerges and civic morality is determined

•       Manages the constitution for the USA accordingly

•       No constitutional change needed to apply each personal privacy, the preamble, candid civic talk, physics-based ethics and the indisputable facts of civic morality.

•       The preamble--a personal, voluntary trust and commitment--is neither anti-religion  nor anti-faith nor anti-doubt, and thus is not secular, but the preamble would prevent church-state partnership

A personal preamble for this civic person in 2016

(Adapted from “We the People of the United States . . .)

A civic people  routinely, voluntarily,

collaborate for connected morality in each and all of

continuity (for personal posterity: children, grandchildren)

integrity (both reliability and wholeness)

justice (take right action first and always)

fidelity (know human obligations)

defense (protect against aggressors)

prosperity (earn real living, including time for civic collaboration)

privacy (use private life to meet no-harm personal goals)

lawfulness (conform to law while working to reform injustice)

and cultivate the constitution for the USA.

* An essay on each goal is in folder “nine Goals” at promotethepreamble.blogspot.com 

Copyright©2015 by Phillip R. Beaver. All rights reserved. Permission is hereby granted for the publication of all or portions of this paper as long as this complete copyright notice is included. Revised July 30, 2016